The present invention relates to decorative materials to be used for building interior materials such as walls, surface materials of furniture and fixture such as doors and vehicle interior materials, and particularly, to decorative materials which show excellent abrasion resistance because of their structure having a surface protective layer comprising a crosslinked resin.
Heretofore, decorative materials, such as decorative sheets, for applications such as those described above are usually required to have abrasion resistance. Thus, decorative materials whose surface protective layers are formed from two-component curing urethane resin paints, ionizing-radiation-curing resin paints and the like are practically used today.
(1) For example, JP-B 49-31033 and JP-B 4-22694 disclose a decorative material wherein a pattern layer is formed on a substrate by printing and then a surface protective layer is further formed, the surface protective layer comprising a resin resulting from a procedure comprising applying an ionizing-radiation-curing resin paint of unsaturated polyester type, acrylate type or the like to form a coating film, and then curing the film by crosslinking with electron beams.
(2) Furthermore, for the case where a greater abrasion resistance is required, the published specification of Japanese Patent No.2740943 discloses the addition of spherical particles such as spherical α-alumina as an abrasion reducing agent to an ionizing-radiation-curing resin forming a surface protective layer.
However, even though a surface protective layer is formed of a crosslinked resin like in the above (1), abrasion resistance can not be improved beyond a certain limit and only insufficient abrasion resistance may be obtained. The addition of hard inorganic particles as an abrasion reducing agent to the resin of a surface protective layer like in the above (2) can improve abrasion resistance, but it may cause a problem of generating a rough feeling in the surface of the surface protective layer. Moreover, in the approach of the above (2), a problem, which is caused by the addition of the abrasion reducing agent, that a plate, a doctor blade and the like become easy to be worn during the formation of a surface protective layer is solved by the use of spherical particles as an abrasion reducing agent. The use of such a specific abrasion agent, however, may also cause a high cost problem.